On 24 January, following SAMURAI BLUE’s quarter-finals exit at the AFC Asian Cup 2015 Australia, Shimoda Masahiro, JFA’s Technical Committee Chairman (Strengthening Section), looked back and praised the head coach Javier Aguirre for his work saying “the result is disappointing but he has built a very good team.”

Looking for their fifth Asian Cup title since their first in 1992, Japan passed atop Group D with three wins, 4-0 against Palestine, 1-0 against Iraq and 2-0 against Jordan. However, they had to leave the tournament after the 5-4 penalty shootouts loss (1-1 draw in the regulation and the extra-time) to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the quarter-final held on 23rd.

Speaking on the quarter-final match, Shimoda said “it’s disappointing not to be able to advance to the next round with the loss in the penalty shootout. We played in such a dominant fashion, had 35 shots, which is unbelievably high for an international A match. But scoring only one goal with so many shots is our problem. We want to apologise to all the people who supported us.”

Aguirre, who took the job in August last year, had six international matches in the two-month period from September to November and the training camp starting at the end of the year for the AFC Asian Cup.

Shimoda pointed out “I think he deserves credit for building this good team in such a short period of time since he took the job. (Speaking of the development his coaching has left) The players now know they need to solve problems by themselves on the pitch and that shows well on the match results. The matches themselves got better as well.”

The last time Japan lost in a quarter-final of the Asian Cup was 1996, five tournaments ago, and they had never lost so early since they started making appearances in the FIFA World Cup. “We have to take this result seriously, but when we look at our national team, we need to evaluate not only the result but also the process to get there. We would like to look in a constructive manner at his practice style, practice regimens, team chemistry, and direction that the team should take.” explained Shimoda.

In terms of how Aguirre is going to develop the team further, he said with expectation “in order for a team who lost in the last World Cup to go to the next level, we want them not only to look for a win in a match in front of them but also to emphasise the ability to play different styles of football according to the opponents and every situation they are in.”

“We just finished the first phase of the four phases we have all the way to the FIFA World Cup in Russia. We discussed we would play well-conditioned players regardless of their age and build the foundation of the team up until now. From now on, I think we will select players with our eyes for the future” he added.

The national team’s next matches are held in late March, the KIRIN Challenge Cup against Tunisia (27 Mar) and the JAL Challenge Cup against Uzbekistan (31 Mar) in preparation for the Asian qualifiers of the 2018 FIFA World Cup to be kicked off in June. 

Comments

DAINI Kuniya, JFA President
That quarter-final was a must-win match for us, but I felt that we sometimes have a match like that in football. The first goal we allowed hurt us. I don’t mean to make an excuse, but having only two days between matches affected a little bit of our sharpness, accuracy and other details. But we created many chances and I think we played good football. I felt very favourably regarding how and how far coach Aguirre took the team from his appointment and till now. Sooner or later our Technical Committee is going to summarise it, but I think the team have been coming together nicely. Although the result was disappointing, with all your support the team now are better than before, and this result reminded us that winning in Asia is very difficult. We want to take advantage of this experience when we play against these teams in Asia again in the FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

Masahiro Shimoda, Technical Committee Strengthening Section, Chairman
(In the quarter-final) We showed our strength in many occasions, and we played in such a dominant fashion. But scoring only one goal with so many shots is our problem. Creating more chances has been our objective. So I think we should take it very positively that we created so many chances. The next step is how to improve our accuracy. Anything is possible in a knock-out round, and winning those matches is a true strength of a team. Japan must throw away all the arrogance, if there has been any, in our all national team categories, and then try to win one match at a time. As China have been making their transition under a French head coach, Asian football has been changing. Countries take in new information and knowledge and make all kinds of efforts to get better. Japan can never stop here. In this tournament, we found progress of the new team under coach Aguirre. Regardless of the issue off the pitch, the players understood the tactics the coach employed and kept working hard on the pitch in a positive manner.

International Friendly Match
U-22 Japan National Team vs U-22 Myanmar National Team
Wed. 11 March 2015 Kickoff 19:10(plan) Fukuda Denshi Arena/Chiba
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KIRIN CHALLENGE CUP 2015
SAMURAI BLUE (Japan National Team) vs Tunisia National Team
Fri. 27 March 2015 Kickoff 19:30(plan) Oita Sports Park/Oita
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JAL CHALLENGE CUP 2015
SAMURAI BLUE (Japan National Team) vs Uzbekistan National Team
Tue. 31 March 2015 Kickoff 19:25(plan) Tokyo Stadium/Tokyo
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